The great English essayist, Macaulay wrote of them: "In perseverance, in self-command, in forethought, in all the virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots have never been surpassed." Further, it might be said, that the Scots were a race in whom personal and family pride was the dominant passion. These attributes might well describe the Lowlanders and the Highlanders; though, there was a considerable difference of another kind between them, especially before the mid-18th century.2

"They are formidable fellows and I only wish Her Majesty had 25,000 of them in Spain [the British and the Spaniards were at war], as a nation equally proud and barbarous like themselves. They are all gentlemen, will take affront from no man, and insolent to the last degree. But certainly the absurdity is ridiculous to see a man in his mountain habit, armed with a broadsword, target, pistol, at his girdle a dagger, and staff, walking down the High Street as upright and haughty as if he were a lord, and withal driving a cow!"3

The view had by the typical Englishmen of the Scottish highlander, a view, incidentally held by those of the mighty Roman army when it was in possession of most of the British Isles7, was expressed by the historian, G. M. Trevelyan:

In 1724, the English decided that they would attempt to control these wild men to the north of them.9 They sent an army officer, George Wade to inspect Scotland. He reported back that what was needed was a permanent presence of the British Army. There should be forts and barracks built for British soldiers and to connect them up by proper roads. In the result, Wade was appointed as the commander for these northern regions and tasked with carrying out his own recommendations. Between 1725 and 1737 Wade directed the construction of some 250 miles of road and 40 bridges.

This British military activity, worked. The Celtic tribes, their chiefs, clans, customs and superstitions, if not ended permanently, changed in 1745 with the Battle of Culloden.

After Culloden a distinctive era for Scotland came to an end and another began. It put an end to the claims of the Stuarts and it solidified the Hanoverian hold on the English throne. These were important objectives for those in power at the time, and the reason why the English troops under Cumberland did such a thorough job of it in northern Scotland. More important to history, is that in the aftermath of Culloden the clan structure of Scotland, which had been the last bastion of European feudalism came to an end. An entire new structure, of leadership and of law, was put in place which shook Scotland to its very roots.

More generally, hard times came to Great Britain in the wake of the Napoleonic wars (1793-1815). The lower classes became poverty stricken. The people who inhabited the Highlands of Scotland were always poor, in the years beyond 1815, more so. The authorities thought to relieve the developing problems by supporting schemes that would reduce population levels by shipping poor Scottish people to America. And so it came to be, that from 1815 to 1830 there was a steady stream of immigrants from Scotland many of whom came to Nova Scotia.

It is important to emphasize that the greatest number of Scottish immigrants came to Nova Scotia during the first half of the 19th century, in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815). In my work, Settlement, Revolution and War, I wrote of the earlier arrivals, especially those that arrived at Pictou on the Hector in 1773, the first ship to come to Nova Scotia directly from Scotland in the 18th century. The Hector was but one of a very limited number of immigration ships that arrived at Pictou in the 18th century. It is estimated that there may have been four, which is a number that pales to the number that arrived after the 19th century had begun.

The Scottish people who arrived on the Hector were Presbyterian from Sutherland (see map). They stayed on in the Pictou area joining the English speaking Protestants who had come from Pennsylvania in 1767. In the years after, the Scottish arrivals at Pictou settled in the area, but not all. If they were Presbyterian they tended to stick but the Catholics were encouraged to move on to Antigonish County and Cape Breton. Eventually, but not before 1802, Scottish settlers came directly from Scotland to Cape Breton.12 "Highland immigration to Cape Breton reached its peak in 1828, but it continued until the 1850s. Soon the Highlanders outnumbered all other ethnic groups in Cape Breton and both the eastern counties of Pictou and Antigonish."13

It is not difficult to find people who will say it was the "Land Clearances" that drove the Highlanders from their ancient home grounds to Nova Scotia. This was likely part of why so many left their homes during this period, particularly between 1815 to 1830. Like so many phenomena that impact on human affairs, it is often difficult to point to causes that brought on a particular train of events. Certain of these causes can go back along time and are likely pinned to the culture of the people effected. This would be especially so, where a law is introduced, such as private property rights, to a land and culture which did not know of or depend upon such extensive rights.

Prior to the clearances, villages, a small collection of people, as were all villages of medieval times, were surrounded by open fields to be used by all and owned by the community as a whole. And so, between the years 1760 and 1840, "open fields" were abolished by acts of parliament and titles of ownership placed in the hands of a few who had won favour with the crown. Some good came of it; some bad.

Thus we have a reason, maybe the principal one, for the Highlanders leaving the Western Isles. The kelp industry failed. While places can be pointed out in the highlands of the mainland where the lairds cleared the land for sheep, the clearances did not much come to the Western Isles. The reason for this is that the majority of these Highlanders could no longer support themselves and their families on the collection and processing of kelp. Though still, the police came to boot the people out of certain of the communities, even if, as it turned out, they were not replaced by sheep. Cruel events occurred in the Western Isles though not as frequently or as extensively in the Mainland Highlands. John Prebble gave a couple of vivid descriptions of these events. The first is that which unfolded at Solas, North Uist, in 1849:

Though it was all they had, it might well have been thought, by the burning of their abodes, that not much had been taken away from these poor people. Though conditions would not have improved by much when the Sheriffs went about their business a hundred years later: this is how a typical Highland home (black house) looked like in Queen Anne's time, 1702-14:

Up to 1816, it cannot be concluded that there were any great numbers of ships coming to Nova Scotia with Scottish immigrants aboard. The Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815) had put a damper on immigration in general. Thereafter, there is no lack of lists of immigration ships that came to Nova Scotia with Scots aboard; passenger lists, however, are another matter.24

Martell estimated that 40,000 came to Nova Scotia as immigrants. In his preface to Martell's work, Harvey observed that there is an absence of specific returns of immigrants. Martell wrote: "Unlike many of the Pre-Loyalists and all or nearly all the Loyalists, the immigrants after 1815 who came to Nova Scotia from the British Isles were not, with a few exceptions, transported at the expense of the Imperial or Provincial government, land companies, or interested individuals.26 They received no implements or utensils to start them off, no regular rations to carry them over the first hard year or more, and no land laid out free of charge."27 Many of the poor Scots who arrived were obliged to pay for their passage and to fend for themselves in the uncleared forests.

The problem -- of obtaining good title to their lands -- for the Scottish immigrants continued for most of the first half of the 19th century, though there were attempts to alleviate the problem.

"In 1841 ... Lieutenant-Governor Falkland informed the Colonial Office that he had dispensed with public auction in Cape Breton and allowed settlers to occupy crown lands on the payment of a fixed price of 2s.6d. an acre. This modification might have appeared advantageous to the lieutenant-governor, but Surveyor-General Crawley soon pointed out that the intended purchasers consisted of 1,500 poor souls from the Hebrides, who possessed neither the power nor the inclination to avail themselves of Falkland's kind offer. Indeed, the majority had at once settled themselves on one of the larger grants of the absentees. Admittedly, two or three of these immigrants made enquiries at the land office, but they had frankly admitted that their intention was not to purchase crown land but to ascertain where vacant land could be found so that they could settle on it without purchase or permission."32

For a variety of reasons, Cape Breton was slow to make itself ready to accept new immigrants, of any kind.33 More generally, it might be stated that during the war years (1793-1815) no one risked voyages at sea unless made in the company of a British Man-of-War. There was a short respite period when in 1802, the Treaty of Amiens was signed; the period lasted but eighteen months. Enough time, however, to set immigrant ships in motion from Scotland to America. During August of 1802, the first boat load of Scottish immigrants, 299, arrived at Spanish Bay (Sydney).34 We should note that it was in 1803 that Selkirk35 landed immigrants from the Scottish highlands at Prince Edward Island.36 Many of those that were first landed in Prince Edward Island, left to join their cousins who had been, by then, reasonably well settled in the Pictou area. With the Napoleonic Wars under way again, few Scottish immigrant ships came to Nova Scotia, until 1817, that is two years after the war had ended.

I suspect that the authorities kept track of the immigrant Ships that came into Pictou more so than those that landed at Cape Breton:

Moorsom, who made his observations in 1827, estimated the population of Nova Scotia, including Cape Breton, at 143,000. He estimated that of this only 600 were Indian and 1,500 were black. A doubling, Moorsom concluded, of the 1817 population of 72,000. While the information we have is shaky in regards to which ships came in from Scotland with immigrants aboard, we have as a practical matter no information who these Scottish people were and where they went to build their little huts and start life anew. Though, we do know, that these Scottish settlers flooded in and were in a destitute condition for a period of time.

Most all of these Highlanders eventually made homes for themselves, and things soon settled down into a comfortable rural routine in a number of areas in Cape Breton. This routine was nicely described by Charles W. Dunn:

The adversities faced by the pioneers that came to Nova Scotia convinced a number, after a winter season or two, to go south into the lands of promise and plenty, the United States, with a climate not to be found in Nova Scotia. But the Scots -- well, they were use to the climate of Nova Scotia before they even set a foot on its soil. The hard times experienced by the Highlanders only served to enhanced the ingrained character of a Scottish person:

In Scott'sFair maid of Perth there is a scene in chapter viii where one of the characters introduces himself:

"My name is the Devil's Dick of Hellgarth, well known in Annandale for a gentle Johnstone. I follow the stout Laird of Wamphray, who rides with his kinsman, the redoubted Lord of Johnstone, who is banded with the doughty earl of Douglas; and the Earl, and the Lord, and the laird, and I, the esquire, fly our hawks where we find our game, and ask no man whose ground we ride over."

It was freedom loving persons of the Scottish Highlands who came to Nova Scotia. The succeeding generations mixed in to the existing populations that had earlier come to Nova Scotia: the natives, the French, the English and the German; and, thus was formed, the unique strain of individuals who call themselves Nova Scotians.